Contexto

“For the next few hours, they read and talked. Sometimes she caught his hand and put it on her belly to feel the baby move. From time to time he got up to feed the fire, glancing out the window to see three inches on the ground, the five or six.”

“The stairs creaked with his weight. He paused by the nursery door, studying the shadowy shapes of the crib and the changing table, the stuffed animals arranged on shelves. The walls were painted a pale sea green. His wife had made the Mother Goose quilt that hung on the far wall, sewing with tiny stitches, tearing entire panels if she noted the slightest imperfection.”

“ On an impulse he went into the room and stood before the window, pushing aside the sheer curtain to watch the snow (…) He stood there for a long time, until he heard her moving quietly. He found her sitting on the edge of the bed, her head bent, her hands gripping the mattress.

“ I think this is labor”, she said, looking up. Her hair was loose, a strand caught on her lip. He brushed it back behind her ear. She shook her head as he sat beside her. “I don’t know. I feel strange. This crampy feeling, it comes and goes.”

“When they reached the car she touched his arm and gestured to the house, veiled with snow and glowing like a lantern in the darkness of the street.

“When we come back we’ll have our baby with us”, she said. “Our world will never be the same.”

“They had been discussing names for months and had reached no decisions. “For a girl, Phoebe. And for a boy, Paul, after my great-uncle. Did I tell you this?” she asked. “I meant to tell you I’d decided.”

“Those are good names,” the nurse said, soothing.

“Phoebe and Paul,” the doctor repeated, but he was concentrating on the contraction now rising in his wife’s flesh.”

“It was a boy, red faced and dark-haired, his eyes alert, suspicious of the lights and the cold bright slap of air. The doctor tied the umbilical cord and cut it. My son, he allowed himself to think. My son.

“He’s beautiful,” the nurse said.

“It’s a boy”, the doctor said, smiling down at her. “We have a son. You’ll see him as soon as he’s clean.

He’s absolutely perfect.”

“Nurse?” the doctor said, “I need you here. Right now.”

“He saw her surprise and the her quick nod of comprehension as she complied. His hand was on his wife’s knee; he felt the tension ease form her muscles as the gas worked.”

“The doctor, who had allowed himself to relax after the boy was born, felt shaky now, and he did not trust himself to do more than nod. (…)

This baby was smaller and came easily, sliding so quickly into his gloved hands that he leaned forward, using his chest to make sure it did not fall. “It’s a girl,” he said, and cradled her like a football, face down, tapping her back until she cried out. Then he turned her over to see her face.”

“ Creamy white vernix whorled in her delicate skin, and she was slippery with amniotic fluid and traces of blood. The blue eyes were cloudy, the hair jet black, but he barely noticed all of this. What he was looking at were the unmistakable features, the eyes turned up as if with laughter, the epicanthal fold across their lids, the flattened nose.

A classic case, he remembered his professor saying as they examined a similar child, years ago. A mongoliod. Do you know what that means? And the doctor, dutiful, had recited the symptoms he’d memorized from the text: flaccid muscle tone, delayed growth and mental development, possible heart complications, early death.”

“The nurse stood beside him and studied the baby. “I’m sorry doctor”, she said.”

“ He thought of his wife standing on the sidewalk before their brightly veiled home, saying, Our world will never be the same.”

“There’s a place,” he said, writing the name and address on the back of an envelope. “I’d like you to take her there. I’ll issue the birth certificate, and I’ll call to say your coming.”

“Don’t you see?” he asked, his voice soft. “This poor child will most likely have a serious heart defect. A fatal one. I’m trying to spare us all a terrible grief”

“Is everything all right?” she asked. “Darling? What is it?”

“We had twins,” he told her slowly, thinking of the shocks of dark hair, the slippery bodies moving in his hand. Tears rose in his eyes. “One of each. I am so sorry. Our little daughter died as she was born.”

“ Caroline (the nurse) stared at the empty doorway. She felt in her pocket for her keys, the picked up the box with Phoebe in it. Quickly, before she could think about what she was doing, she went into the spartan hallway and through the double doors, the rush of cold air from the world outside as astonishing as being born. She settled Phoebe in the car and pulled away. No one tried to stop her; no one paid any attention at all. Still, Caroline drove fast once she reached the interstate.”